GABORONE, Botswana (miningweekly.com) – Botswana is so impressed with Canada’s mine safety tools that use thereof may become a requirement for all the country’s chamber members.
Botswana Chamber of Mines safety committee and Debswana safety head Fred Jansen told the thirteenth Botswana Resource Sector Conference here that taking on the Mining Association of Canada’s programme had proved so effective that making its implementation a Chamber of Mines of Botswana membership requirement was under consideration.
He said that the four years of Debswana’s adoption of the Canadian chamber’s Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) model had coincided with significant safety improvement for the company, which is owned jointly by the government of Botswana and diamond company De Beers.
TSM protocols and indicators come with guidance documents, which made it easy to implement, Jansen said.
The Mining Association of Canada publishes implementation on its website.
“So there’s no place to hide,” Jansen said.
The systems has checks and balances to ensure that credibility prevails and its simplicity is such that auditors are able to tell quickly whether or not the programme is working.
TSM was as good as other global alternatives and came at a much lower price.